European Adventure: A hot shower at a fair price…

Venice was a delightful city made a lot less wonderful by the terrible digs. The hostel had six showers per floor and each floor was made up of five or six 16 bed dorms. I had the extra fun of being in the top bunk by the door so I heard every single movement of the door as people arrived back at random points during the night. The lack of showers was made worse by the fact that one or more of the shower curtains seemed to disappear randomly. They were also located in coed bathrooms which didn’t thrill many people and didn’t have hot water once while I was there. As someone who doesn’t function particularly well without a morning shower it was a fairly major problem.

The city thankfully made up for it as I headed out the next morning. I started out by taking advantage of the fact that I’d given up on sleeping and gotten up and out of the hostel by 8 and thus had a lack of cruise ship groups and walked around most of the city again. People were up and around, but as it was Sunday morning as well things were fairly laid back. Once it got a bit later I headed back to St. Mark’s and took the museum tour which included access to the balcony overlooking the square. It was quite fascinating to look through the various displays about the various building periods of the basilica and the art that has been added and subtracted over time. The tour includes a few glimpses into the interior of the church and the famous mosaics so thankfully I didn’t really feel the need to come back after mass to see it again.

I spent most of the rest of the day exploring the outer islands in the lagoon, particularly Murano the famous home of the glass blowing industry. There was a fantastic variety of different workshops and a few of them even had live demonstrations. I’ve always been interested in glassblowing and seeing how quickly the experts can tool out 3 or 4 beautiful pieces of work in a row with deft moves. The island itself is very Venice looking but feels very much quieter despite the number of tourists still walking around. I stayed longer than I’d planned in fact after finding a beautiful little trattoria with a treed courtyard and fantastic pasta.

The following day was another early start that turned out to be for naught when the train I wanted to take was full. It ended up taking an extra 90 minutes with a third  change to get to my next destination. That said, the Cinque Terre region on the Ligurian coast was totally worth it. I ended up staying in the tamest of the towns which honestly wasn’t a bad thing given how I was feeling after Venice. Almost the moment I got in the door I was enjoying a long and gloriously hot shower, finally feeling clean after 3 days. I went out for some food after and talked to my roommates a bit but was pretty much out of it early. The hostel was beyond bizarre though as in addition to a 1-3pm lockout for “cleaning” they also required you to be out of the bedroom by 10 so it could be cleaned. Since it was a place with 2 8-bed dorms and 3 double rooms for couples  you had to wonder what exactly it was they were spending so much time on. We were really unimpressed when a cleaning woman came into our room while we were sleeping and stripped the beds of the people who had left early while shouting in Italian to the woman at the front desk. This wasn’t the only instance of staff rudeness either, but the place was clean, cool and quiet so it made me happy overall.

The next morning was time to do the famous hiking. The region is primarily  made up of 5 towns along a beautiful stretch of coast each nestled amongst vineyards and olive/lime groves. The paths between the towns that were originally used for harvest time are now incredibly popular hiking trails. I hear they’re beyond busy in high summer but things were calm enough now you were able to walk them only letting people pass every five minutes or so. Unfortunately one of the paths was shut off completely due to a landslide, but I still got to walk the prettiest parts when the time came. It turned out to be a gorgeous day for it as well but hot enough that reaching the end and being able to hop into the sea was the best reward of all (not that it kept me from grabbing some gelato afterwards.) Unfortunately as I was trying to get on the train to head to the other end of the 5 towns and do  one of the shorter parts of the hike not affected by the landslide I found out that it was a major strike day for Italian transport workers. This has been going on all summer and resulted in 80% of the trains being cancelled so when I looked at things I realized I risked being stranded for the night if I did any more hiking so I went back to Corniglia, grabbed a pizza and walked up to watch the sunset. Truth be told I was pretty wrecked between the hiking and swimming so it wasn’t a bad thing.

Earworms (Commercial Edition)

In the vein of the earlier earworm post I have a more important question… Is there anything more insidious than that very special brand of commercial that finds a nook and simply won’t leave your head for hours or days after you hear it? United Furniture Warehouse has even had campaigns based around singing the jingle. I do try hard to not let advertising impact my buying decisions, but I can’t say it doesn’t affect me.
For me growing up a lot of these jingles were seen on the slightly shitty American stations we’d get piped in from random American cities. Back before Winnipeg had NBC and CBS via Minneapolis we had Michigan stations (until people complained that the news from there was too violent.) Once we got Fox our stations came first from Toledo and now from Rochester NY.

One of my all time favorites was the dog jingle for a car dealership. It featured an animated dog and cowboy and the following lines:
•    “Hey dawg, cmon dawg… Me an’ dawg want you to come on down to Telegraph Road, RIGHT NOW, get a good deal” “WOOF”

It has probably been 15-20 years since I’ve seen that jingle, but at least 3 of my friends can still sing it word for word.

Sometimes it’s not even a musical jingle just a specific shouting pattern. A perfect example of this is Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro a Lawyer from upstate New York who shouted at the top of his lungs and gave himself various other nicknames including the “meanest SOB in town” as he tried to solicit injury cases.  He was pretty much the epitome of the american lawyer stereotype.
•    “I’m Jim “THE HAMMER” Shapiro and I sue drunks, call 1-800-546-7777”

He made a lot of variations over the years and somehow I still know the phone number by heart.

Sadly I can’t blame the Americans for the worst of them all. A commercial jingle so vile that even as they change it every season the main theme is still stuck in your head… I speak of course of: Marineland.
•    “In Niagara Falls Ontario, Marineland is the place to go… etc…”


This one has such tenacity that a few of my friends use it as a rickrolling type video knowing that if we trick someone into seeing even the opening few words they’ll have the whole song running through their brains constantly for a week. Personally I’m hoping having lived out here and seeing the commercials even more often may have increased my immunity a bit.

Roadrage

Is there anything worse than being on a 1-lane highway? Up until now you’ve been cruising down a two lane divided, people are moving at a decent pace. Maybe you’re in a hurry, maybe you’re not, but you’ll get there reasonably close to when you expected. Then you lose a lane…
Instantly, every 5th driver around you turns into a moron and an annoyance. We’ve all been there, and you know any kind of predictability for arrival time goes out the window. This isn’t the biggest issue if you’re heading out just to take a sightseeing drive, but when (like me) you’re trying to catch a ferry it becomes problematic.

roadrage

Know Your Obstacles:

1.    The Sunday Driver: Only drives their car over to town a couple times a week. Doesn’t understand that the car can go faster than 50km/h (31ish mph) despite being in an 80 or 100 zone.

  • Likely Driving: Honda Civic, Chevy Cavalier/Optra, VW Golf/Beetle, Dodge Caravan

2.    Old Man in a Hat: Similar to the Sunday driver but will often go a bit faster. Unfortunately he brakes for almost anything (including sunshine) and takes forever to get back up to that speed. Also changes lanes at a pace more appropriate to an oil tanker.

  • Likely Driving: Caddy, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercedes C or S class, Toyota Corolla

3.    Nervous Nellie: Possibly a new driver, but just as likely not, they’re nervous about everything. Likely a city driver that doesn’t often get on the highway. The key symptom on a 1 lane each way undivided is that they flinch every time a car comes the other way.  This often leads to them slowing down, or even more dangerously actively slamming on the brakes anytime an opposite direction car passes. Particularly annoying (and dangerous) at night when their nervousness climbs into panic and no matter how far back you stay you’ll still risk hitting them.

  • Likely Driving: Toyota Prius, VW Jetta, Honda Civic, Mini Cooper, Mazda 3

4.    Captain Curvaphobic: Some of the most frustrating people to try to pass, this type is absolutely terrified of even the slightest bend or curve in the road.  The moment the road turns from a straight line he’ll drop his speed by 15-20 km/h. Those of us who like to use our cruise control find them absolutely infuriating. What’s worse is the moment you’re back on a straight section of road where you can actually pass, he’ll accelerate again and make it difficult.

  • Likely Driving: Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Neon, Toyota Echo/Yaris

5.    Shepherd and his Sheep: The Shepherd is likely one of the above types who has gathered 5-10 sheep who are too nervous to try to pass him, but are sticking so close together than someone who comes up from behind needs to pass the entire herd at once or becomes part of it and exacerbates the problem. Most of the time periodic passing lanes can break this up, but this part of Ontario doesn’t seem to believe in them.
a.    Likely Driving: Everything under the sun.

6.    Trailer Tom: Usually a pretty similar situation as the shepherd. Often slow because they’re pulling a large trailer with a ridiculously underpowered light SUV or Minivan or even worse a car (enjoy the yearly transmission replacement morons.) The sheep in this case find it harder to pass since the two vehicle train is longer to pass. I’m not as anti-caravan as the Top Gear guys (I quite enjoy camping) but come on, if you’re planning to pull one buy something with the power train that can handle it.

  • Likely Driving: Honda CRV, Dodge Caravan, Mazda Tribute, Ford Taurus, Dodge Caliber

7.    The Explorer: We’ve all seen this guy in town too, usually a tourist trying to find a specific street and slowing/stopping at every intersection trying to read street signs. On this kind of highway he’s the guy who either can’t read a map or simply can’t remember a road number. Everytime you pass a sign indicating an upcoming turnoff or split he’ll be slowing and swerving as he tries to read a map and drive at the same time. In some cases he’ll do this for hours, apparently so bad at reading maps that he can’t even tell that he’s not even in the ballpark of his exit yet. Why people can’t print off a google map or make a quick sequential list of the Highways/Roads/Exits they’ll before I they leave on a trip to an unfamiliar area I’ll never understand.

  • Ford Focus, Ford F-150, Ford Explorer, Dodge Ram, Hummer, Honda Pilot

8.    The Big Heavy Truck: You’re driving down one of these roads and off in the distance is a farmyard or gas station with a soul crushing sight. Waiting to exit: a massive double load tractor trailer. You hope and pray that it’s either turning left, or that the traffic flow is constant enough in front of you to not let it in. Of course it won’t be, and you’ll find yourself slowed to a crawl as this behemoth struggles to make it up to 50 then takes another five minutes to get to 85. God help you if this is a hilly road, because this truck is so full of anvils, tungsten or cows that it has to slip into a crawler gear and put on blinkers to climb. Soon there will be a train of 30 cars behind you, but none of you will be able to pass because a stadium parking lot worth of cars will suddenly be travelling the other way at perfect intervals, except when there’s a double yellow line.

9.    The “I have an expensive car that obviously has cruise control but I’m not using it and driving you to madness”: Maybe it’s just me, but I see these guys all the time.  You’ll be driving down the road at 105km/h or whatever and come up behind one of these guys. Prepping to pass, you’ll suddenly find them pulling away from you, so you re-engage cruise and relax again. Suddenly around the next bend you’ll be up near their bumper again, whatever cell phone call they’re on having distracted them into slowing down. This time you decide, screw it I’ll pass them so I can just stay cruising. No luck, they’ll pass you back a few minutes later.

  • Likely Driving: Mercedes S/C Class, BMW 3 or 5 Series, Lexus LS460, Cadillac CTS. Audi TT, Volvo XC90, Mini Cooper S or whatever the current IT car is.

I don’t understand why it’s so much to ask for me to be able to put on my cruise control and enjoy the drive. If you aren’t comfortable driving on the highway, take a bus… the greyhound network here in Southern Ontario is reasonably good and likely wouldn’t put you into a stress induced early grave. My personal pet peeve though is the last type, mostly because there often seems to be active malice behind their actions as opposed to the just general stupidity of the other offenders. I’m not actively pushing for a death race 200 style combat/point system…or maybe I am?

dr2000

How about?

  • Sunday Drivers: 250 points
  • Old Men in Hats: 100 points (way too common to be worth more)
  • Nervous Nellie: 750 points (reasonably common, but twitchy so hard to hit)
  • Curvophobe: 250 points
  • Shepherd: 100 points (25 points per sheep)
  • Trailer Tom: 120 points (easy target)
  • The Explorer: 120 points (with the map up he’ll never see you coming)
  • The Big Heavy Truck: 300 points to everyone within 100 kilometers in celebration
  • IHAECTOHCCBINUIADYTM: the biggy a full 500 points!

We can of course add on the pedestrian scoring system from DR2000

  • Teenagers: 40 points
  • Toddlers under 12: 70 points
  • Women: 10 points more than men at any age.
  • Anyone over 75 (either sex): 100 points (Euthanasia Day!)

Hmmm, I think we’re on to something here. Now I just need to come up with a terrible nickname, a fun modding/paint scheme for my Mazda3 along with an alluring female navigator for the nude group massage scene.

A man can dream…

-Toast

p.s. What about the Toaster (main weapon: flamethrower?) painted in chrome and restyled to look like an old school Toaster. Hell we could even put a cylon eye on the front and mix that joke in.
product-preview-adult-toaster-large
Check out the shirt here

p.p.s. If you haven’t seen the original Death Race 2000 you really should, it’s amazing.

One Rainy Evening (Part III)

Over the next bunch of orbits I was absolutely card dead. I won the blinds once raising from the button with pocket sixes but that’s about it. I was being not so slowly being blinded off without there being much of anything I could do about it. Amazingly I still snuck onto the final table sitting about 6th in chips but with a pretty massive jump in stack size above me.

The shortest stack at the final table was the Scandi. He had barely more than a BB and consequently went out shortly after the first final table hand. Once he was gone the only player other than the chipleader at the table I recognized was the ice queen, now sitting to my left. On her left was a guy with a Stephen Fry avatar, then the chipleader who had 3x the next closest player. Next up was a dude called Smoky, a girl(?) using a Britney Spears avatar, a guy named Jésus and a guy who appeared to be a Gus Hansen Wannabe (GHW.) Britney and I were the short stacks with everyone else but the CL being at about level pegging.

I knew I had to make a move on the first decent hand I saw. I finally saw pocket nines as the table folded around to Brit. She pushed all in, the GHW called her and with little choice I pushed as well. We flipped em: (click for more)

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The ABC’s of Creepy

On the off chance that you needed further proof that Michael Jackson is creepy beyond all get out, here are several selections from a recent auction of property from his Neverland ranch near Santa Barbara California.

michael1

“I am the Lord thy Michael and thou shalt not have other gods besides me…”

michael4

Bubbles looks like he’s scared of Orbiter number 4 on the left.  Hopefully he didn’t pee or MJ’s armor will rust.

michael21

Words escape me on this one, I’ll simply state that individual close ups make it even more terrifying, including the absolute worst:

michael3

Ungodly creepy… even Tiny Tim loves Michael.

Do not touch the rabbit, the rabbit is hot!

Just in time for Easter… 

 

Entertaining and yet mildly creepy (at least to my eyes) but I wonder why he didn’t do the most obviously hilarious method: Bunny on a hotplate!

The word “unnecessary” springs to mind… as does the word “shite”

 

So I went to see I love you, Man last week. (funny enough movie, Jason Segel and Paul Rudd lovable and hilarious as always) Before the film I was hit with the preview for the latest Wayans Bros. movie…

 

If you haven’t had the pleasure, let me introduce you to the concept of “Dance Flick.” The Wayans Brothers (including new generation member Damon Jr.) have decided to do an incredibly timely spoof of dancing movies. Note also that it is Flick rather than Movie… lest they be confused with Friedberg and Seltzer and their Epic, Date, Teen etc movies.

 

From IMDB:

Street dancer Thomas Uncles is from the wrong side of the tracks, but his bond with the beautiful Megan White might help the duo realize their dreams as the enter in the mother of all dance battles

 

Sound familiar?

 

Yes, that’s right we’re getting a parody of Save the Last Dance, a movie released almost a decade ago, talk about timely. From what I saw in the preview I’d also say there’s some elements of Center Stage (2000) and other fantastic films. Thank you Senors Wayans, let’s hope you reach the heights of comedy you hit in “Little Man.”

People with zero chance of becoming Nobel laureates

This is absolutely one of my favorite things that have been sent to me in a while, a set of 41 terrible science projects. I’m sure a good chunk of these are fake or shopped, but some are all too real. Honestly, you have to pity the elementary school/junior high science teachers. Who doesn’t remember the kids who really didn’t try, or better yet who tried but chose the most ridiculous subjects imaginable. Here are a few absolute all-star projects. Children are our future, and we should all be absolutely terrified.

 

leaveastain

 

Any bets this kid’s name is something of the type: Percival Higginsbottom IV? This entire experiment was inspired by the most tragic moment of his young life…The terrible Saturday afternoon when the butler spilled Grey Poupon on his blazer during high tea. He has a friend from the same school in the expanded set of pictures as well…

 

 

 whatsmydogs

How did someone not tell this kid about the gaping hole in his “experiment?” Stay tuned for his sequel next year: What is Marlee Matlin’s favorite piano concerto?

 

 

 footfetish

Sorry Teach, but I think you should have maybe steered this kid in another direction? Unless junior high has changed a lot since I was there (and the new Degrassi tells me otherwise) this poor girl is probably going to be known by a nickname such as Toe-Licker until she escapes to a college on the other side of the country

 

 

 crystalmeth

These two ladies are trying to clear up some misconceptions about methamphetamines. Sure they may be addictive, horribly unhealthy drugs that are eating up people across the world… but they’re not all bad. Now that Mom cooks up meth in our basement, she doesn’t have to whore herself out to support her coke addiction. Crystal Meth, friend of children everywhere (at least until the lab cooks off and roasts everyone alive.)

 

 whosyourdaddy1

 

On a related “my mom’s is a less than chaste woman” note, little Veronica’s desperate quest takes her science project onto some decidedly creepy ground. I can’t decide if the hearts a desperate attempt to prove she’s really ok about it, or just a cry for attention.

 

 

 

plantsandpop

Taking the lead in the “Neither of my parents give a rats ass about me and I started this project last night” category is Butch with his scientific investigation of the effects of Mountain Dew on house plants as presented on what looks like foolscap. It’s been done kid, hell it was a major plot point in Idiocracy… a movie I suggest you watch for potential career path options.

 

 

Check out another set here at photobasement.com